I was just thinking about TiVo a couple of minutes ago. I had just seen an article that said, thanks to TiVo, you never have to watch a bad show again. That is sort of true. TiVo will capture enough shows you really don't have to. TiVo is like fishing with a net. You can record whatever series you like, look for whatever shows match your favorite genre, see if anything good is coming on in the next few hours. It takes only a minute. Later on, when you are bored or holding a piping hot TV dinner in your hand, you can watch the best thing that has been on instead of the best thing on at the moment. It is really profound. And as I thought about it, I realized this would increase the maximum number of users possible to view a show higher than ever before in television history. After all, kids have scouts some nights, but tests to study for other nights. Married and single adults have social outings. People go out for sports, movies, grocery shopping, and errands on weekends. So, without TV, some of every possible time slot has part of its potential viewing audience just decimated by the logistics of life: needing to do something else at the time that show airs. With TiVo, anybody who has a TiVo and gets the station the show airs on can watch it. Sure, there could be another show on at the same time they watch instead. That does not happen all that much. However, the amount of time people have available to watch television does not really increase just because someone has a a TiVo. So, people probably watch a lot more of their "A list" shows and a far less "C list" shows. TiVo has probably increased the correlation between shows true popularity, and how much they are watched. There is probably less idle television watching going on today than there was 5 years ago. And what that means is a show's airtime is going to have less to do with how successful it is than it used to in the past. Shows that aren't very good probably won't do very well, even if they come on at a really convenient time for television. While that is great for the best, most popular shows - it could be really harmful to the so-so shows. Something has to air all day long and most of the night. But will profitability of having a truly marginal show dip significantly under the influence of DVRs? Prime time may still be prime time for watching television. But the television that is watched may not be what is on the air. It may be what has been on the air sometime earlier in the week.